Kate Desmarais

Katelyn is a total newbie to the gundog world, embarking on her first training season with her black lab, Rosie, and Wild River Kennels in the summer of 2023. Growing up, Katelyn never had ‘working’ dogs; her family dogs were better off classified as house cats. Into her adult life, she couldn’t wait to get a retriever of her own, but the household rule was: “You can get a dog when you own your own house”. Well, bring on 2020! She bought an 1800s farmhouse, “The Half-ass Homestead,” in northeast Connecticut with plenty of land for her two miniature donkeys, Diezel and Dozer. It wasn’t long after buying her house that she would be visiting a breeder and walking away with, quite possibly, one of the best investments of her life. Together, Rosie and Kate have tried their hands (and paws!) in several canine sports, from dock diving to scent work, and most recently, hunt tests. What started as a "just-wanna-check-it-out" kind of thing at Wild River Kennels' Thursday night retriever training, turned into weekly group training nights, private lessons, and a daily grind of obedience and trying to learn the ins and outs of this new sport. Rosie may have had no interest in picking up ducks two months ago, but now, she’s the drive behind it all. This is just the beginning for this duo; what started as something fun to do together, turned into much more than that: an inseparable bond, friends that became family, and an ever-growing love for the outdoors.

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